Far Cry 2 is an open world first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21 2008 in North America, and on October 23 2008 in Europeand Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008.Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, however the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day Central African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate "The Jackal," a notorious gun runner. As of January 23, 2009, the game has sold 2.9 million copies.
Gameplay
Far Cry 2 is a sequel to the original Far Cry. The game features an open-ended experience. Players are able to ally with one or multiple factions, and to progress through the game world and missions as they see fit, resulting in a nonlinear style of gameplay commonly referred to as sandbox mode that allows the story to progress at their speed and in the order they choose. Players can use a range of vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats and hang gliders, to travel within the 50 km2 (19 sq mi) gameplay area. The playing styles range from head-on assaults to stealthy infiltrations and assassinations. The game takes place in a sprawling African landscape, with terrain ranging from desert to savannah to jungle.Various factions and vehicles are featured; enemies include human mercenaries, but sci-fi creatures such as the Trigens from Far Cry are not featured. Furthermore, the player's feral abilities introduced in Far Cry Instincts and its expansions do not return in Far Cry 2. There is also a dynamic weather system that has a day-night cycle and different weather conditions such as storms and strong winds. The time of day also affects the behavior of AI, in terms of enemy alertness and aggressiveness; for example, an enemy might have a slightly heightened awareness at night, but be unable to see the player in hiding, while during the hot part of the day the enemies might be sitting in the shade in groups but easily spot the player from a distance.
The health bar represents the health of the protagonist that is divided into five segments, each of which automatically refills if it is not depleted and the player finds cover for a few seconds. Players carry a limited supply of syrettes which can be used at any time to fully replenish the health bar, and are obtainable from first aid boxes located throughout the game world, specifically at guard posts. When nearing death (only one health bar remaining), the character must perform first aid on himself, for example removing bullets with pliers, or snapping twisted or broken fingers into position.
Weapons
The player also has access to a large arsenal of real world weapons, including battle rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, handguns, and light machine guns. The game breaks these weapons down into three inventory slots, each with a specific list of weapons assigned to it:- Primary weapons: Heckler & Koch G3KA4, AK-47, FN-FAL, AR-16, M1903 Springfield, SVD Sniper, MP5SD, MGL grenade launcher, Franchi SPAS-12, Daewoo USAS-12, Accuracy International AS50, Ithaca 37, and a special SD shotgun.
- Secondary: Star Model P, IMI Desert Eagle, Makarov pistol (silenced or unsilenced versions available for use), Uzi, MAC-10, Flare gun, M79 grenade launcher, IEDs and a sawn-off special shotgun.
- Special: RPG-7, recoilless rifle, flamethrower, mortar, PK machine gun, M249 light machine gun, dart rifle, and a special Crossbow
A major gameplay feature is that these weapons degrade over time. Weapons become dirty and prone to jamming and will eventually catastrophically fail, break in half, and become completely unusable. The player can purchase weapons at various gun shops, which provide an unlimited supply of the weapon in serviceable condition, along with manuals to upgrade weapon's reliability and accuracy. More weapons can be unlocked at the gun shop by completing missions involving the destruction of competitors' arms convoys for the gun shop owner. Weapons can also be picked up off of fallen enemies, but they are always in their most degraded condition and can only be used for a short period of time before jamming and ultimately breaking down completely.
Realism
The Dunia Engine allows complex sequences and run-events during gameplay; the game features a day-and-night cycle, as well as tree and vegetation regeneration. A unique fire propagation mechanism, which allows a small fire to spread and eventually cause large brush fires, may be used either to the player's advantage during combat or against the player. The behavior of fire is dependent on factors such as wind speed, wind direction, rain, and vegetation type. For example, a fire may not spread as easily in a lush, moist jungle environment compared to dry, grassy plains and savannahs.
Several species of African wildlife can be encountered in the game, and are able to distract the enemy as well as make them aware of the player's presence. All the large animals in the game are grazing herbivores, such as zebras, wildebeest, gazelle, buffalo, impala, and gemsbok. Also domestic animals such as goats and chickens can be found. However, none of the wildlife found in the game pose any direct threat to the player.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer in Far Cry 2 attempts to include the dynamic elements of the singleplayer game (such as fire propagation) and to provide as accessible gameplay as possible so that it is available to all skill levels and so that players have specific gameplay aspects to keep in mind when designing their own maps in the map editor. It also includes a vast number of vehicles.Online matches can be held for a maximum of 16 players. Four modes are available with the shipping of the game, consisting of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Diamond (a slight variation of the standard Capture the Flag as the flags are replaced with diamonds), and Uprising. The Uprising mode provides a twist on a node-capture match by including a captain for each team. Only captains can capture the designated points across the map, and a team must assassinate the enemy captain after capturing all the points to win the round.
Multiplayer gameplay is class based, with six classes available. The Commando is the standard grunt class, with an assault rifle; the Sharpshooter specializes in long range with conventional sniper rifles; the Guerrilla excels in close combat and ambush with shotguns; the Rebel uses explosives and fire with flamethrowers and rocket launchers; the Gunner provides heavy firepower with light machine guns and rocket launchers; and the Saboteur uses stealth and silenced weapons . Each class can choose an appropriate primary weapon and a side arm, as well as explosives such as frag grenades or Molotov cocktails. Players are able to unlock more powerful weapons within each class by spending up to three "blood diamonds" on a class; the diamonds are earned through the experience points from killing other players and completing objectives. Potential upgrades for individual weapons within a class include operation manuals, maintenance manuals, and bandoliers.
The Multiplayer has a ranking system which awards points for killing enemy players, reviving friendly players, capturing control points, and capturing diamonds.
Synopsis
Setting
Far Cry 2 abandons the science fiction aspects of its predecessor in favor of a more realistic setting. The game takes place in late 2008 in a small, failed Central African state, currently embroiled in a civil war. The government has recently collapsed, leaving two factions vying for control. At war are the United Front for Liberation and Labour (UFLL, led by Addi Mbantuwe, a former opposition leader) and the Alliance for Popular Resistance (APR, best far led by Maj. Oliver Tambossa, Chief of Staff for the former government). Both factions have claimed to have the people's interests at heart, but both have shown ruthlessness, warmongering, greed, and a general disregard for the well-being of the people. Both sides have hired many foreign mercenaries to bolster their strength over the course of the conflict. The recent exhaustion of the nation's diamond mines has thrown the nation into further turmoil, leaving many foreign mercenaries without payment and no way out.The goal of the player's character is to find and assassinate the Jackal, a 52-year-old arms-dealer who has been selling weapons to both sides of the conflict. The player must accomplish this goal by whatever means necessary, even if he has to succumb to the immorality of the warring factions and the Jackal himself.
Characters
The protagonist of previous Far Cry games, Jack Carver, is not featured in this game. When Ubisoft interviewed players about the original Far Cry in their research for this game, the interviewees did not find the character very memorable or likable. As a result, in the sequel the player chooses from nine different characters to play, each with a unique look and back story. All the playable characters are male, but there are a few potential buddies that are female. The playable mercenaries include Warren Clyde (American), Quarbani Singh (Mauritian), Paul Ferenc (Israeli), Xianyong Bai (Chinese), Marty Alencar (Brazilian), Frank Bilders (Northern Irish), Josip Idromeno (Albanian), Hakim Echebbi (Algerian) and Andre Hyppolite (Haitian).The non-playable characters include Flora Guillen (Cuban-Angolan), Nasreen Davar (Tajik), and Michele Dachss (French).The main enemy of the game is a sadistic but intelligent arms-dealer known as the Jackal, who is fueling the violence in the country. He is notorious for selling his impressive-quality weapons at very cheap prices and being fearless. He affirms his knowledge of will to power by quoting Frederich Nietzche's Beyond Good and Evil at the beginning of the game and having little to no remorse for all the death he has caused. Various tape recordings throughout the game reveal his thoughts and beliefs, in one of the tapes he reveals he is a humanist. It is rumored that the Jackal has cancer, and does not have very long to live. Despite all of the chances he has, the Jackal never tries killing the protagonist, and simply uses him as a tool to cause more chaos as the protagonist hunts for him. In the end, it is revealed that the Jackal is seeking redemption from his life as an arms-dealer, and wishes to cleanse the country of its war.
The two factions each have a leader and second in command. The UFLL's leader is Addi Mbantuwe and his subordinate's name is Leon Gakumba. The APR's leader is major Oliver Tambossa and his subordinate's name is Prosper Kouassi. The factions also have some kind of "lieutenants" or underbosses that the player will encounter during the game.
Friends
All of the playable characters are different types of mercenaries. The playable characters the player does not choose to play become non-player characters who are friends of the player's character and who can be found in bars around the in-game nation. These friends are called Buddies and they can serve various roles in the game. All of the buddies offer side missions to the player, completion of which increases that buddy's standing with the player. Additionally there are a few "extra" buddies that can be found. In any playthrough the buddies that can be met is random and not all buddies will appear.The player's "Best Buddy" and "Second Best Buddy" can play additional roles.The player's "Best Buddy" can provide the player alternate, or "subverted" ways to complete most of the main story missions. These subverted missions always require more steps than the standard mission, but they often make the final objective easier. For example, bringing a container of defoliant to one Buddy who has access to a plane, will allow him or her to deprive the enemy of cover when the player assaults a plantation, or bringing a fuse to a buddy that has a bomb will allow him or her to blow up a bridge, simply crushing an enemy barge beneath instead of forcing the player to assault the barge. Completing subverted missions also increases the player's standing with the best buddy and adds "upgrades" to every safe house in the region, such as vehicles parked outside, medical pickups and ammo pickups. However, the inevitable final objective of a subverted mission will always be that the player must rescue their buddy (Who by the end of the mission is heavily outnumbered by the enemy and must be rescued). The player must choose to either take on a shorter, more difficult mission, or a longer but easier mission.
The player's "Second Best Buddy" can come to the player's aid when they fall in battle if they are "rescue ready". The buddy will move them to a safer location, then revive them and help fight off the remaining enemies. The buddy then needs to recuperate and will be ready to save the player again once they are visited at a safehouse.
Buddies can be wounded or killed in battle during subverted missions, buddy rescues, and other circumstances. When a buddy dies, their death is permanent, and the player has only a limited number of possible buddies in each region. When all of the player's buddies are dead, subverted missions and buddy rescues are no longer available. When buddies are wounded in battle, they will mark their position with a smoke grenade and cry out for help. The player can choose to render aid, or simply leave the buddy to die. If the buddy's wounds are minor enough, the player can inject them with a syrette to fully heal them. However if the buddy's injuries are too severe, the player's only option is to euthanize them by either overdosing them with syrettes or looking away and shooting them in the head. Buddies usually have three "lives" where if they're shot down a third time, the player will not be able to save them. Their last words before death are usually "thank you."
Plot
The game starts off with the player given a mission to kill the famous arms dealer known as "The Jackal". The player's character lands in the northern territory of Leboa-Sako and is introduced to the harsh reality of life in the country. On the way to the town of Pala in a cab, the player character begins to suffer from the effects of malaria and passes out. He awakes inside a hotel and finds the Jackal standing over him. With the player incapacitated by illness, the Jackal briefly offers some insight into his philosophy, quoting from Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil about the will to power. He threatens to kill the player character, but ultimately chooses to spare his life and leaves after stabbing a machete into the wall which the player character retrieves.Meanwhile, the ceasefire in Pala has collapsed and the UFLL and APR are engaged in open fighting. The player either passes out with malaria after managing to escape or is severely wounded before he can escape. The player is revived in the camp of one of the faction lieutenants in the area. In return for saving the player's life, the lieutenant orders the player to conduct basic errands. The player meets a journalist named Reuben Oluwagembi, who is writing a book about the conflict and the Jackal's part in it. He requests that the player find the tapes of his interview with the Jackal, scattered over the region. Once the player has acquired some malaria medicine from a priest who is helping civilians escape the violence, the player is given the freedom to choose their next mission. In addition to the hunt for the Jackal, the player can provide the Underground with stamped travel documents for refugees in exchange for anti-malarial drugs, ambush convoys of weapon shipments in order to gain access to a greater variety of weapons and equipment from arms dealers, and assassinate targets acquired by intercepting signals from various cell-phone towers in the area.
The player is forced to work with both the UFLL and the APR in Leboa-Sako, each using the player as a deniable agent in order to avoid a full-scale war. When the player is in the faction HQ before he is taking a mission, conversations are heard between the faction leader and the mercenary leader, for example on one occasion they discuss the rumor that the Jackal has cancer and only a few months left to live. After many successful missions, a faction captain (either Prosper Kouassi or Leon Gakumba) contracts the player to assassinate the other faction's captain. Once the assassination is complete, however, the player is betrayed and ambushed by the contractor and his troops. The player escapes, but in the chaos, he is forced to choose either to defend the priest and the civilians under his care, or to aid fellow mercenaries. The player's character eventually falls in combat, and awakes in the back of a truck filled with bodies. Any buddies the player has made up to this point are now either killed or declared missing, dependent on whom the player opted to aid. He falls off of the truck onto the road and seeks shelter in the desert, finally collapsing in the following sandstorm. The Jackal appears and takes the unconscious player to safety, but is then forced to flee when retreating troops of the other faction, now without a captain, arrive. A lieutenant from this faction offers the player a chance to redeem himself by assassinating the faction captain who betrayed the player. The player assassinates the target at a troop rally and escapes south, to the province of Bowa-Seko.
In Bowa-Seko, the player and a Buddy follows the lieutenant's orders to destabilize the area and reignite the conflict by conducting a false flag operation in Port Selao. Following this, the two factions are now at war in the new province, opening up a variety of work from both sides. Eventually, the player is hired by one of the leaders, either Oliver Tambossa or Addi Mbantuwe, to deliver diamonds to the opposite faction, for a peace settlement between the factions. When the player arrives at the location, however, he finds the area devastated and the faction leader dead. The Jackal appears and explains that he wants the conflict to continue, since the warlords want peace only to conduct their crimes outside the world's attention. He then seizes the diamonds and knocks the player character unconscious.
The player wakes imprisoned in an old slave outpost, and discovers that he has been used as a scapegoat, blamed for murdering a faction leader and disrupting the peace settlement. The player escapes and continues his search for the Jackal. In the process, he performs a series of missions, consisting of assassinating Nick Greaves and Hector Voorhees, the new warlords of the APR and UFLL respectively. However, the player can choose to kill his contractors instead after meeting with Greaves and Voorhees. Reuben then calls the player for help, fearing that he and some other journalists are either going to get deported or shot at the airfield. The player fights off the militia and rescues the journalists.
With Reuben's help, the player finally tracks down and meets with the Jackal (at this point there is a glitch to kill The Jackal), who reveals his intentions to help the civilian population escape the war-torn country. Although he must eventually kill the Jackal, the player character agrees to help. The Jackal's plan is for the player to assassinate the two remaining faction leaders and take a case of diamonds to bribe the border guards. After finding the diamonds, however, the player must fight his fellow mercenaries and friends, as they want the diamonds for themselves to escape the country.
With both faction leaders dead and the diamonds in hand, the player meets the Jackal at a hut near the border (named 'The Heart of Darkness'). The Jackal plans to dynamite the valley leading to the border, in order to prevent the militia from following the evacuating civilians. However, the detonating cord has malfunctioned, and the explosives must be short-circuited with a car battery at the site, leading to the detonator's certain death. The Jackal offers the player a choice; he can detonate the explosives, or take the diamonds and shoot himself upon leaving the country, either way ensuring the civilians' escape. The game ends with Reuben Oluwagembi witnessing the explosion, then turning to take a picture of the massed crowd of refugees crossing the border. One of the border guards is seen holding the case of diamonds.
The APR and UFLL warlords have attempted to end hostilities and establish a government but the violence continues. Reuben's story was ignored by the international press, and he is supposedly publishing it on his personal blog. The civilian population largely escaped, and NGOs credit the low casualty rate to the work of the country's Underground. The Jackal has since disappeared, and world governments insist that he died in the conflict, although no body is ever found. In addition, the player's exact fate is unseen, though presumably the protagonist dies, either in the explosion or by the gunshot heard at the end of the game. Such actions are performed linearly without any choice on the part of the player, despite the in-game journal hinting that the protagonist might choose to kill the Jackal instead.
Development
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History
The unveiling of Far Cry 2 took place on July 19, 2007 in Paris, France, by head company Ubisoft. Ubisoft stated that the game had been in development by the Ubisoft Montreal team, and would be released on October 23, 2008.The game's producer, Louis-Pierre Pharand, said that the single-player game will "potentially have close to 50 hours of game play." Lead designer Clint Hocking stated that at least 100 hours are needed to experience all of the game's content.
A pre-alpha video of the game, showcasing the visuals and 13 minutes of gameplay with developer commentary, was presented in Leipzig in August 2007. The demonstration showed off the gameplay involving gunfights and driving sequences, and unique features such as first aid and physical maps were also shown. It also showcased several graphical features tying in directly with the gameplay, such as procedural breakage of vegetation and its regeneration over time, dynamic propagation of fire, and volumetric wind effects capable of breaking vegetation and spreading fire. Man-made structures were also shown to be highly destructible.
Research
In July 2007, Ubisoft sent a team of the game's developers to Africa to carry out research for the game. They reportedly spent two weeks traveling around Kenya and camping out on the savannah. The game's producer, Louis-Pierre Pharand said that following the trip they realized they had gotten the design of the game "so wrong" and made several changes to "make the game feel like you were really there".Some African wildlife are featured in the game world, but herbivores only; according to the developers, predators without careful control would have eaten all the herbivores and starved to death.Map editor
Far Cry 2's map editor has been designed specifically for ease of use. It includes features such as easily raising/lowering terrain and applying textures. A video was shown showcasing the editor, including an Eiffel Tower made completely from in-game pieces.The map editor features hundreds of objects found in the single player game including vehicles, buildings, bridges and more. Fan mods for the map editor can unlock more objects. However, weapons (with the exception of mounted guns) cannot be placed on maps to support the game's class-based gameplay. Nor can people or wild animals. And you can not edit real map of the game.
The objects in the player made maps, such as buildings and structures are all just links to the objects in the game's install directories, making the map files smaller. This means that uploading and downloading maps is quick and easy. It was announced at the GC 2008 that there will be a memory space limit for each map.
The map editor uses a real-time rendered freecam view, without a heads-up display or other screen elements such as a hand-gun combination. Time-of-day can be freely chosen in the editor. Trees and grass animate in the real-time preview.
Engine
Main article: Dunia Engine
Ubisoft has developed a new engine specifically for Far Cry 2, called Dunia, meaning "world" in Arabic and Swahili.The Dunia engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers realistic semi-destructible environments, special effects such as dynamic fire propagationand storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system and non-scripted enemy A.I actions.
The engine takes advantage of multi-core processors as well as multiple processors and supports DirectX 9 as well as DirectX 10. Only 2 or 3 percent of the original CryEngine code is re-used, according to Michiel Verheijdt, Senior Product Manager for Ubisoft Netherlands. Additionally, the engine is less hardware-demanding than CryEngine 2, the engine used in Crysis.
Far Cry 2 also supports the amBX technology from Philips. With the proper hardware, this adds effects like vibrations, ambient colored lights, and fans that generate wind effects.
